Kalyan Airstrip was located at Nevali village, south of Kalyan railway station and north of

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport is an international airport serving Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). It is the second busiest airport in the country in terms of total and international passenger traffic af ...

. It was the primary landing ground for the nearby city of Bombay (now

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

) as early as 1920, much before the airfields of

Juhu Juhu (Pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, ͡ʒuɦuː is a posh and upmarket neighbourhood of Mumbai. It is known for the sprawling Juhu Beach. It is surrounded by the Arabian Sea to the west, Versova (Mumbai), Versova to the north, Vile Parle to ...

and RAF Santacruz were establishe

As a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

station during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, the airfield served as RAF Kalyan from 1942 to 1947 and was abandoned after the war. It is owned by the Ministry of Defence but has been encroached upon. Several Fighter Squadrons and support units were stationed at Kalyan from 1942 to 1947. The field was abandoned after the war.

History

The airfield at Nevali was used by the RAF pilots during World War II to give operational cover to the Bombay region. The total area of the Nevali air base was over . Post-Independence, ownership of the land was transferred to the Ministry of Defence. In June 2017, the Navy began constructing a boundary wall to protect the remaining land from further encroachment, since around 400 acres of the land was encroached upon over the years.

Proposal to use site for International Airport

In October 2006 the Government of Maharashtra first proposed the Kalyan-Nevali site as a candidate for a second airport for the

Mumbai Metropolitan Region Mumbai Metropolitan Region (abbreviated to MMR and previously also as Greater Bombay Metropolitan Area), is a metropolitan area consisting of Mumbai (Bombay) and its satellite towns in the northern Konkan division, of the Maharashtra state in we ...

. However, the Ministry of Civil Aviation was not very keen on the idea and wanted to focus on the second airport in Navi Mumbai. The Kalyan site was proposed because, compared to the Panvel site, the total area of the Nevali Airbase was over relatively free of any natural obstacles and, unlike the Panvel site, there was no possibility of CRZ (Coastal Regulatory Zone) violations, flattening of mountains or diversion of any rivers. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests had raised environmental objections on the proposed location of the Navi Mumbai International Airport near Kopra Panvel area, because the construction of the airport would involve reclamation of low-lying areas in an ecologically fragile zone as well as destruction of several hectares of mangroves. Hence the State Government proposed several alternate sites, one of which centred on a piece of land owned by the Airports Authority of India near Kalyan In August 2007, the national security advisor (NSA) had communicated to the state chief minister that the airport could not be developed on the 1,800 acres of defence ministry land due to safety and security reasons because a R&D laboratory of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) was being constructed in the adjacent area. The proposal was also opposed by farmers in the Kalyan-Ambarnath belt who contended that the project would require more land than what was available with AAI, thus affecting around 22,000 farmers from 18 villages in the vicinity of the site. The state government dropped the idea of examining alternative sites in February 2014 as it had secured all necessary approvals for the Panvel site.

Current use

The site is located on Haji Malang Road at Nevali village, south of Kalyan railway station and away from the

at Sahar in

. It lies close to urban areas of the

Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation Kalyan-Dombivli is a twin city and it comes under Mumbai metropolitan region and it is a municipal corporation with its headquarters located in Kalyan in Thane district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It was formed in 1982 to administer th ...

. The nearest railway station is

Kalyan railway station Kalyan Junction is a major railway junction station on the central line of the Mumbai Suburban Railway network, lying at the junction of the north-east and south-east lines of the suburban Mumbai division of the Central Railway, north-east of ...

on the Central Railway of the Mumbai suburban railway network. The site can also be accessed from State Highway 2 (Kalyan-

Murbad Murbad is a census town within the administrative division (taluka) of Thane district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Murbad city with its neighbouring villages jointly form the Murbad nagar panchayat, which is near the cities of Thane, Kar ...

Ahmednagar Ahmednagar (), is a city located in the Ahmednagar district in the state of Maharashtra, India, about 120 km northeast of Pune and 114 km from Aurangabad. Ahmednagar takes its name from Ahmad Nizam Shah I, who founded the town in 1494 ...

highway) and the NH 160 (

Nashik Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nashik ...

Thane Thane (; also known as Thana, the official name until 1996) is a metropolitan city in Maharashtra, India. It is situated in the north-eastern portion of the Salsette Island. Thane city is entirely within Thane taluka, one of the seven talukas ...

national highway) which was earlier numbered NH 3 before renumbering of all national highways by National Highway Authority of India in 2010 year. The two abandoned runways have been encroached upon by local population and now host dirt roads serving nearby villages. The southern end of the site now hosts a research and development laboratory of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

References

External links

Maha govt seeks approval for another airport this one in Kalyan2nd Airport for Mumbai and how not to build it by Dorab Sopariwala
{{DEFAULTSORT:RAF Kalyan Kalyan Kalyan World War II airfields in India Airports in Maharashtra Airports in Mumbai Defunct airports in India Kalyan-Dombivli 1920s establishments in India Airports established in the 1920s 20th-century architecture in India